Monday, January 21, 2013

3rd Quarter Begins...

We are beginning the 3rd quarter this week (oh how time flies when we are having fun). We have completed all of our assessments for the 2nd quarter and report cards will be coming home in the next week. In addition, your child will receive one of three scores on their report card. The three scores are proficient (P), making progress (M), or limited progress (L). This basically means if your child can do the assigned skill listed with no help he/she will receive a P, if he/she is making progress towards the skill listed they will receive a M, or if he/she is unable to complete the skill independently or is not making progress then your child will receive a L. Please do not be discouraged if they receive a no because progress may have been made. We will discuss this more at conferences.

This week we will be continuing on in our reading street and discussing the differences between today and long ago. This always allows for some great conversations to occur about what we had awhile ago to what we have today. You may want to take some time and talk about how school was different for you. We will continue to work on blending words. The children are doing this extremely well and I am impressed with how well they are learning their sounds and words. We have three new sight words this week (they, of, you). I have noticed the word "like" and "me" have been somewhat difficult for the children. Please take some time to review the sight words nightly for about 5 minutes. We are working extremely hard on our writing too. The children need to be able to write a sentence with spacing, upper/lowercase letters, and punctuation by the end of kindergarten.

This week in math we are continuing to work on subtraction. The children are working with numbers up to 5. Many of the children are doing well with drawing a picture of the story; however, some children are having difficulty with writing a number sentence. You also have probably noticed that your child has been bringing home math pages. These math pages are ones we are completing in class. These are from our math program Go Math! We typically have kept these pages in the book and not have sent them home, but we have now decided to send these pages home. Please be aware that some pages will come home blank because we do not complete every page, but you will be able to reinforce the skill at home!